


and it seems i've waited long enough

by anomalousity



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 03:25:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2135256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalousity/pseuds/anomalousity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We’re gonna buy you the nicest dick in Manhattan.”</p><p>Inspired by <a href="http://princecanary.tumblr.com/post/93078459965/lol">this comic</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and it seems i've waited long enough

**Author's Note:**

> I saw inspiration, and I went with it. Before anyone asks, or yells at me, I'm not trans, but I'm not cis either. If I've gotten anything wrong, tell me because I don't want to insult anyone; that's the absolute worst thing a person can do when another is trying to read something for pleasure. Secondly, I'm fluid regarding my gender. Additionally, this will probably be continued but no promises. I just really love the AU.
> 
> Yell at me on [tumblr](http://buckybaarnes.co.vu).
> 
> Title is once again stolen from a song. Because I'm not unoriginal trash.

Okay, today she’s going to-

No, today _he’s_ going to go through with it.

The scissors are lying out on towel Pepper left on his bed earlier that morning after his shower. His hair is dry, toweled off and resting damp over his shoulders. The feeling of it being gone, of it no longer touching his shoulders and blowing in his face like some dumb Hollywood starlet as she’s calling out for her man to save her is a nice one to say the very least.

He grabs them before retreating back to the bathroom, carefully combing out his hair with his fingers before dividing it into two halves. He takes the side on his right, gripping the reddish strands tightly enough that his knuckles are white at the peak, and opens the scissors up right beside his ear.

The residual snip is equally parts terrifying and elating.

It’s slow, but it’s fast enough. Snip after snip, strand after stand, the floor surrounding his feet is covered in copper hair. The remaining tufts hang from his head unevenly but it’s enough to bring a crushing weight off of his shoulders. He looks… well, not quite like the man he is, but definitely masculine; like a young man, perhaps.

Pepper looks good, he thinks.

He goes to his closet and pulls out the ill-fitting suit and button up, quickly stepping into the pants and making haste with the buttons. A glance at the clock reveals that he’s running a solid five minutes late, and he feels a slight twinge at tarnishing his formerly perfect record, but he figures the tradeoff was more than worth the cost.

Casting himself a final glance in the mirror before he heads out, he figures he definitely looks good.

Hopefully Stark will be okay with him being a little late.

The train ride has him tapping his foot impatiently, checking his watch every other minute and earning grunts and angry words half muttered whenever he sighs too loudly or glares too pointedly at some asshole letting his hands sneak where they shouldn’t. Just because he still has breasts doesn’t mean they’re available for other men to grope at their leisure.

After batting away no less than three stray hands, Pepper steps off the train at his stop a block from Stark Tower.

“Excuse me,” he mumbles, brushing past a businessman on the street. He just grunts an apology in reply before scurrying off wherever he’s going. Pepper keeps his head high and continues on his way, batting away mean hands and glares, and offering what he can to begging fingers and hungry eyes.

Finally, he arrives at the Tower, and the lump that has been slowly building low in his gut the entire way there resurfaces with a vengeance. “Fuck,” he mumbles, stopping right outside the door and tugging at his sleeve. It’s a lot more intimidating when put into perspective, this coming out of sorts. He hasn’t even called home and told his parents. “ _Fuck_.”

The doorman is giving him a wary look, but he holds the door open nonetheless, waving him through with a kind smile and understanding eyes. It eases some of the tension lurching in Pepper’s middle.

He nods his usual greeting to the security guard positioned at the front of the building, smirking when he catches his surprised expression and mouthing, “It’s still Pepper,” before saluting the other, who just grins and salutes him right back.

Happy greets him at the elevator, telling him that Stark sent him to ask a question. Pepper raises a brow, but doesn’t ask anything. Neither does Happy.

The elevator ride is slow, but it’s nice. A soft country rhythm is drifting from the speakers, soothing Pepper and allowing him to relax a bit, despite the unfamiliar circumstances.

When they open, however, he freaks out a little.

“Happy-”

“Pep, he’s not going to care.”

He pauses, hand half outstretched towards Happy but not quite there. His fingers give a spastic twitch before his hand falls to his side, limp. He can feel himself gasping around half choked out words, but the one boiling at the forefront of his mind, the one he can get out is, “What?”

Happy just rolls his eyes and reaches for his elbow with an annoyed grunt. “C’mon, Pep, the first day you came in you cringed when someone called you pretty, and when Tony complimented your intelligence before your looks you looked ready to rule the world.”

“But this isn’t about that.”

He just sighs before glancing back at him with a smile. “I know, Potts,” he says. “Can I be the first to wish you luck?”

Pepper smiles and doesn’t even try to hide the blush he can feel blooming on his cheeks. “Of course,” he replies.

They walk into Stark’s office together, Pepper following behind Happy slightly, and as usual, Stark’s focus is entirely devoted to the teeming city below. Pepper asked him once, why he likes to spend so much time staring at the grimy looking Manhattan landscape. Stark just told him that he had plans for it.

A grunt pulls his attention from Stark’s silhouette and over to Happy.

“Mr. Stark, Miss-er Pepper is here.” Pepper raises an eyebrow at him, and he mouths his apology before winking and ducking back out of the room. Just before he pulls the doors shut, he calls out, “Don’t be an asshole, Tony.”

“You friggin’ wish, Hogan.”

His eyes are on his feet as he hears Happy’s retreating footsteps. It’s now, or never, he supposes. Clearing his throat, he forces himself to straighten as he says, “Good morning sir, I have your review ready.”

“Excellent!” he calls, kicking his feet out as he spins in his chair. His head’s tilted back, so he probably hasn’t seen Pepper yet. He doesn’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing.  “There are more on your desk if you-”

Uh oh.

“If you-”

Yes, Pepper’s breakfast is definitely going to make another appearance at the worst possible time.

“What the- What are you wearing?! Your hair-? Your clothes?”

Pepper turns his attention back to Stark’s position at the head of the room, feet kicked up before his face like some Machiavellian villain. He half expects the man to pull out a hairless cat and start bartering on about his plans to siphon one billion dollars, but unfortunately or fortunately, he doesn’t.

Instead, his eyes are widened almost comically. Almost, because Pepper’s insides are doing backflips inside of him and it’s all he can do to not throw up on the fancy carpeting.

He swallows before twitching his fingers nervously over the briefcase he’s now clutching tight to his chest. So much for steeled confidence, he thinks, as he swallows down more fear than he can possibly handle and straightens his back.

“Sir… I understand if you’re upset. I just feel better dressing this way. I hope you can take me seriously like this as much as you did when I… wore a skirt… p-please.”

Despite his fumbling, Stark’s managed to mask his surprise under his usual passive expression. He looks cold; Pepper readies himself for inevitable crushing disappointment.

“No one will take you seriously,” Stark says, no hint of teasing in his voice.

Pepper shifts his weight from foot to foot, stubbornly fighting away the tears he doesn’t want to shed because, god dammit, he’ll stand by this even if he’s beaten from every direction. Well, that’s what he builds himself up to say.

What ends up coming out is, “U-uh.”

He stands, staring down his boss with everything he’s got but none of the intimidation he needs. Stark just regards him back with that cool expression, brown eyes flitting down his too curvy form and back up to where his hair is a tousled mess atop his head. God, he should’ve thought to go to a salon or to not do this at all but he knows he need to because he’d never feel comfortable if he hadn’t done this, Christ what has he done-

“Not while you’re wearing _that_ tie,” Stark remarks, raising an eyebrow.

Pepper’s so surprised that he doesn’t notice his boss climbing over his desk like it’s nothing more than a formality, doesn’t notice how he perches himself right in front of Pepper and fixates him with an evaluative expression before a wide smile breaks out over his features and it’s all Pepper can do to just… stare.

His hand flicks at the uneven ends of his hair, then his voice announces to the building wide AI, “JARVIS, cancel my appointments for the rest of the day.” He turns his attention back to Pepper. “We have to go shopping,” he says, before skimming his eyes down Pepper’s frame. He _tsks_ before adding, “ _And_ get you a better haircut.”

They’re out and walking down a fancy strip of stores that Pepper could never dream of affording if he hadn’t had the disposal of the billionaire playboy who’s currently tugging at his arm. Stark drags him into stores with Italian brand names, interjecting comments whenever Pepper emerges from numerous dressing rooms in fitted suits.

“Ooh, Versace looks good on you, Pep.”

“Nah, tight fitted pants are _so_ last season.”

“Oh God, let me get a picture! You look hot, Pep, everyone in a three mile radius is going to be thirsting for your dick- Oh, that reminds me, JARVIS run a search on the best female to male transitional surgeons on the planet. We’re gonna buy you the nicest dick in Manhattan.”

Pepper frowns at the offer and reaches forward, briefly marveling at the ruby red suit Stark-er, Tony-insisted on his trying on. “Sir, you really don’t have to-”

“Pep, I know I told you not to call me ‘sir’.”

“But still, you don’t have to pay for the surgery,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “This is more than enough, Tony.” The use of his name catches a little in his mouth. Pepper decides he likes it.

Tony, for all that he’s brooding at work, just shrugs and gives him another one of those billion watt smiles. “I want to,” he replies, brushing his fingers through his hair. Then, his eyes widen. “You’re going to need hormones too, aren’t you?”

“Well _yes_ , but you don’t-”

Maybe Pepper’s just really slow on the uptake, or he needs to get his eyes checked, because Tony’s in his personal space again, fingers hot around his wrist. His breath is cool where it brushes Pepper’s forehead when he says, “I _want_ to, Pepper, for fuck’s sake let me help you with something. God knows you help me with enough of my personal shit.”

“It’s not shit-”

“And neither is this, so just fucking _let_ me.” His eyebrows are knitted between his eyebrows, the light blue-green vein on the side of his forehead thrumming away with each beat of his heart, as though it’s daring Pepper to say another thing in the contrary.

Boy, does he want to. But he knows a futile argument when he’s face with one.

So, he concedes. “All right,” Pepper says. “But I’m still not big on form-fitting suits.”

Tony gives him another one of those heart stopping smiles before flinging his arm around Pepper’s shoulders.

“I’m not either,” he says. “But you look damn good in ‘em, Pep.”


End file.
